Aug. 21—As employees left the restaurant industry for jobs in landscaping or construction, to stay home with kids and other reasons, Jon Kodama found difficulties hiring he'd never experienced before, and his three restaurants — Steak Loft, Breakwater and Go Fish — are losing people fast as students return to school.

He started having issues in the spring. Now, Breakwater is open five days a week when Kodama says it should be seven, and Steak Loft cut mid-week lunches. He said when Mohegan Sun started offering sign-up bonuses, he started offering bonuses to people that work through the summer.

"I don't think we're going to see normal — or I don't even know what normal's going to look like — for a good while," Kodama said. His only consolation is that "it's not like it's any one industry or any one entity that's suffering. We're all in the same bucket."

But the hospitality industry has been hit harder than most.

In a survey of 30,000 jobseekers conducted April through June, Joblist found that 38% of former hospitality workers said they weren't considering a hospitality job, and more than 50% said no pay increase would make them return to their old restaurant, bar or hotel job.

Locally, some former restaurant workers cited anxiety about COVID-19 protocols, caring for an elderly parent and bad hours as their reasons for leaving. Many restaurants have cut back on their hours or even closed — temporarily or permanently — because they can't find enough staff.

Jamie Akers was bartending at Steak Loft until mid-March of last year, when she was laid off due to the pandemic. She said it was a great place to work, and she feels bad for what restaurant owners have had to deal with.

Akers, 39, said collecting unemployment benefits made it easier to budget and gave some stability, but nothing compares to working and feeling like you're contributing. When she got the offer to come back, she was nervous about all the new protocols.

"It's very worrisome," the Norwich resident said. "You want to make sure your customers are happy and taken care of, and you're following the right protocol, so I think the stress of that was really kind of deterring from going back. I was like, do I want to put myself in that position?"

After 19 years in the restaurant industry, she thought maybe this was a sign she shouldn't be waitressing anymore. She ended up getting a part-time job at TJ Maxx last summer and is now working almost full-time at Holmberg Orchards, where she has worked on and off seasonally for about seven years.

Why some people left

Noank resident Raychel Brown said she had been working full-time at The Mariner in Mystic but left to care for her 90-year-old mother, who has stage 4 kidney disease and is diabetic.

Brown, 50, knows many people have the mentality that "servers are just sitting on their laurels and collecting unemployment" but said working in Mystic, she could make more bartending one weekend than in a week on unemployment.

She said she doesn't have to pay rent on her apartment because her mother owns the building, adding, "I couldn't imagine what life would be like if I actually had to pay market rent right now. I wouldn't be able to do it. I wouldn't be able to take care of her."

Brown's working part-time doing the second job she's had since before the pandemic, as an independent contractor selling electric propulsion for boats. She's been applying for remote sales management positions but "the number of people that are applying for remote work is astronomical."

Waterford resident James Gerard, 45, said he left his job at Applebee's in May, after 20 years in the restaurant industry. As a manager, he worked straight through the pandemic — cooking, answering phones, wrapping food, cleaning.

He said he didn't mind working the closing shift sometimes but was doing it 20 days a month, which didn't let him be with his wife and three kids, ages 10, 8 and 3. Now, he is a freelance graphic designer, working in the morning and at night.

In terms of income, "I did take a little bit of a hit, for now, and I'm OK with that. I'm a lot happier; I have a lot more quality of life."

Gerard no longer has to deal with what he called "atrocious" guests. He said there were customers that made staff cry, started fights and called him the gum on the bottom of their shoe.

Unruly customer behavior is a job hazard that has seemed to have grown worse since the pandemic.

In Niantic, Café Sol posted on Facebook earlier this month, "Thank you for supporting small business and PLEASE stop yelling at my staff." The owner said if people wanted to "complain about long wait times or the fact that we ran out of avocados because they were unripe," they could call her.

'There's no one easy explanation'

Kathryn Edwards, an economist at the RAND Corporation, said the leisure and hospitality sector lost 45% of its jobs in a single month last year and is now creating jobs faster than other parts of the economy.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average hourly earnings in the sector increased 9.6% from last July to this July. For June, BLS reported 10.1 million job openings — a record high — as well as 6.7 million hires and 5.6 million separations, which includes 3.9 million people who quit their jobs voluntarily.

Edwards summarized, "People are moving around."

BLS data show that the accommodation and food services industry saw 1.4 million job openings, 1.2 million hires, and 849,000 separations in June.

In Connecticut, the unemployment rate dropped from 7.7% in June to 7.3% in July, tied for the largest over-the-month decrease in the country. But it's still well above the national rate of 5.4% and ranks 44th.

The Connecticut Department of Labor said Thursday the state has about 130,000 weekly unemployment filers, down from a pandemic peak of 400,000 in May 2020 and from 220,000 in February, but up from 40,000 before the pandemic.

Federal unemployment benefits of an extra $300 per week expire Sept. 6.

Edwards sees unemployment benefits as enabling people to stay out of the workforce rather than causing them to stay out, saying, "The cause is COVID."

In a survey of 5,000 people in May and June, Indeed found that many unemployed workers don't feel the need to find a job right away but want to return to work within the next three months.

Concern about COVID-19 was the most commonly cited reason for a lack of urgency. The next most common reasons were spousal employment, having a financial cushion, and care responsibilities, and then unemployment benefits.

Asked about milestones that must be reached before working again, the most common response was more job opportunities, then increased vaccinations, then unemployment insurance or savings running out.

"There's no one easy explanation," Edwards said. "You can't just say, it's unemployment, or it's school, or it's people switching jobs, or it's J visas. It's a lot of these things coming together at the same time."

Restaurants adjust

Restaurateur Ricky Au said he had to close one of his restaurants, Thai Sawasdee in Groton, so he could use the staff for his other three restaurants, Pink Basil, Spice Club and Samurai Noodle Bar & Grill. He said that might be permanent.

"I just don't see us opening back up, just with the staffing," he said. "I don't know how long this will continue for, so I really can't say."

Au said his other restaurants are doing OK, but a lot of workers are going back to school soon.

Spice Club in Niantic put a sign on the door that said, in part, "We are understaffed so please be patient with wait times and our employees as we work our hardest to give you the best service possible. Thank you for your understanding!"

Kitchen Little in Mystic posted on Facebook on Aug. 4 that it is temporarily closed due to the lack of help. A voicemail at the restaurant says, "My hope is to open at the end of August. Keep checking this message or check my Facebook or my webpage so you can get a better idea. In the meantime, keep your dreams up; no bad days."

Mystic Depot Roasters was temporarily closed earlier this month due to lack of kitchen staff, saying "pandemic relief has made it more attractive for workers to stay home than be gainfully employed." The coffee shop added that it has "the best team around" but has come up empty-handed in "extensive search efforts to find additional help."

Raychel Brown, the former Mariner employee, noted that a lot of new places have opened in Mystic during the pandemic and have needed to hire.

While some eateries closed, food establishments that opened in Mystic between last March and now include The Shipwright's Daughter, Young Buns, Nana's Bakery & Pizza, Mystic Royal Restaurant, Taquerio, Abbott's Outpost, Bank & Bridge Brewing and Anchor Mystic.

e.moser@theday.com